Thursday, November 3, 2011

Last summer, YouTube asked thousands of people all over the world to document their experiences on a single day and upload the footage. Over 80,000 people from 192 countries contributed and this resulted in a 90-minute documentary film titled "Life in a Day" directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott. The movie documents people’s lives around the globe – “from the mundane to the profound, everything has its place as we spend 90 minutes gaining greater insight into the lives of people who may be more like us than we ever suspected, despite the fact that we're separated by incredible distances.”

After a limited theatrical release around the world appearing at Sundance, Berlin, SXSW and Sydney film festivals, the movie is finally coming home to YouTube, in its entirety, for free. You can see the trailer below.

Director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott pieced together the movie from 4,500 hours of footage uploaded to YouTube, all of it purportedly recorded on July 24, 2010. The team also sent 400 cameras out to the developing world to capture 20-30% of the final film. “We filmed the people who don’t have Internet or cameras in order to paint a global picture. I didn’t want a global film that’s just about rich people, or Europeans and North Americans,” said Director Kevin MacDonald.

Early reviews of the movie are very positive. The Times of London calls it “a thrilling piece of cinema” and the Washington Post said it was “a profound achievement”. The movie received 81% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.